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Red
Alert 3

Score: 7.5 / 10

I was really looking forward to Red Alert
3. While it managed to reward that anticipation somewhat – why do I
love full-motion video so much? – the experience was less fun thanks to
a level of micromanagement that has no place in a real-time strategy
game as fast as Red Alert 3.

Nearly every unit in Red Alert has some
kind of alternate mode or “power-up” – it’s not relegated to the new
Rising Sun faction, which features units “inspired by” anime characters
and Transformers. Just as an example from the Soviet campaign, the
lowly foot soldier can use an assault rifle (default) or a Molotov
cocktail. To be completely honest, by the time I realized there was a
secondary “mode” for each unit, I was on the last mission of the Soviet
campaign. While

playing around with the tutorial or, I
don’t know, reading the manual might have made me aware of this fact
well before the last mission of the Soviet campaign, once I knew it, I
spent the rest of the remaining campaigns trying to use it effectively.
This proved to be a mistake because it just caused frustration. While
fiddling with the toggles of various units it was very typical for
either a) the units to be

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destroyed or b) the units to be obliterated
by a rushing foe. I simply abandoned the feature in favor of the
reliable “unstrategy” of building up a massive force then stomping
through the opponents’ defenses and mopping up with the readily
available super weapons, which I strictly adhered to with the 360
version since it made for much easier unit management.

The speed of the game really discourages
fiddling around with some of the more “advanced” options, especially
because it has to be done manually for each unit. So, to properly enjoy
Red Alert 3 I had to completely ignore a feature that the development
team labored over.

Besides layering that complexity on the
game, Red Alert 3 features a lot of water and plenty of amphibious and
water-based craft that are new to the Red Alert series. Even this is
not without its problems. By far the worst offenders when it comes to
pathfinding, are the naval units, which is strange considering that most
water areas are wide open. When they approach land, that’s when
problems happen. Any irregularity in the coastline appears to be cause
for the unit to drop anchor. This is incredibly annoying when you’re
attempting any kind of coordinated attack and the naval component finds
a cove in which to take a break.

Resource gathering, so much a factor of the
Command & Conquer games, boils down to controlling resource nodes on the
map. Ore is kept in large dumpsters and to tap the supply, one only
needs to build a refinery next to the dumpster in order to start the
collector ferrying ore between the two locations. In this way there’s a
constant supply of ore, which means a supply of credits by which to
build your war machine and base structures.

For each and every mission, you’ll play
with another Commander. While playing solo, the accompanying Commander
autonomously moves around the map on its own but will respond to four
generalized orders or specific deployment of a superweapon. The fun
only really happens when playing with another human General. At least
that’s been the report of many players. I, on the other hand, have yet
to get an online game going, either cooperatively or competitively.
It’s a technical problem that we have yet to solve though and it appears
to be somewhat connected to my serial key which is already connected to
an account. Namely, someone else’s account, which means I can’t
connect. The Xbox 360 fairs much, much better in this part of the game,
but how much enjoyment you’ll squeeze out relies directly on your (and
your human compatriot’s) proficiency with the controls.

One of Red Alert 3’s strongest features is
the full-motion video cutscenes and mission intros, which are at just
about the right level of camp to be in a Red Alert game. The tone has
definitely changed though, at least when comes to sexing up the female
characters. This is the first Command & Conquer game to feature a full
figure on the front of the box; a departure from the headshots of
previous titles. The fact it’s a female figure straddling the box and
the foldout of the tech trees has been replaced by a foldout of the
“Girls of Red Alert 3” should be a sign this Red Alert features much
more cleavage than previous games.

It sounds a lot like I actually had no fun
with Red Alert 3, but that’s far from the truth. I have had and
continue to have fun with the game, even with micromanagement hell,
pathfinding problems, action so fast it’s often the case you’ll lose
sizeable chunks of your army before you can get to them to make some
orders, and the over abundance of super weapons make a lot of matches a
cakewalk. In spite of all its shortcomings, I have still enjoyed it.
It’s similar enough to Red Alert 2 to feel really comfortable and though
there’s been a lot of extra things added to the toy box (and not all of
them work), it’s still fun.